Creating a Top Hat Student Account
How to create a Top Hat account if you are a student.
As a student, you will have to create an account in Top Hat. You might be asked to do this by going directly to the Top Hat web site or via an email invitation sent by your tutor from their Top Hat course. The process is similar but slightly different for both. Please follow the instructions below as appropriate.
Direct through Top Hat
1. Go to the Top Hat login page via the link below:
2. A search box should be displayed, enter Edinburgh. If a school name is displayed instead, and it is not University of Edinburgh, edit the text to Edinburgh. From the list of results select University of Edinburgh.
3. The screen will refresh. Click on the blue Login with school account button.
4. You will be taken to your university login page. Login with your normal UUN and password.
5. Once signed in you will be asked to choose your system role for Top Hat. Click on the Sign-up as a Student button.
6. You will be asked for a course Join Code - your lecturer should have provided this to you. If not you can enrol onto a student demo course - enter 408508 into the search box.
7. The details of the course should appear once you enter the code - check that they look correct and click on them to enrol on the course. Click on the Join this Course button.
8. You will then be asked to confirm your name and accept the terms and conditions. Click on Next when complete.
9. You will then be prompted to enter your student ID. You should enter your UUN e.g. s1234567. Click on Next to proceed.
10. While we recommend that students take part in activities using a device connected to the University's Wi-Fi, Top Hat does allow students to take part in most activities using SMS texting (if enabled by the Professor on the course). If you wish to take advantage of this facility then you need to add your phone number into your profile so that graded questions can be linked to your profile.
Either:
- Add you phone number and click on the Send verification code button. A four digit verification code will be sent to your phone that you will be asked to enter before leaving this page.
- Click on Skip if you will not be using text messaging to respond to questions.
NOTE: Using SMS to respond to questions rather than connecting to the University Wi-Fi will impact on your data plan. If you have a text allowance then each response will reduce this. If you are charged per text then each response will be charged at your network rate.
11. Your account has now been created. Click on the Continue button to enter the course - unless you joined the demo course (see step 6 above) it may be that there is no content to be seen in the course until you start using the system during lectures.
NOTE: Once you have created your account, you can add further courses later once you have been given the join codes or you may be enrolled onto courses automatically if your Top Hat course is linked to a course in Learn.
To see these instructions with added screenshots please visit this Sway page:
Sway: Creating a Top Hat Student account
Via email invitation
Your tutor may add you to their course in Top Hat - either directly or via a sync with a course in Learn. When they do so they have the opportunity to send you an invitation to join the course - if you do not already have a Top Hat account. The sign-up process is slightly different when following the link in the email and is described below.
1. Take a note of the course join code - this is a six digit number unique to the course that you will need to create an account. The join code is found in the email below the Join Course button.
2. Click on Join Course in the email.
3. You will be taken to your university login page. Login with your normal UUN and password.
4. Click on Sign-up as a Student.
5. Enter the Join Code of the course (as noted in step 1). Click on its name when it appears and then Join this Course.
6. Enter your name and check the box to accept the terms of service. Then click on Next - DO NOT SELECT 7 Day Trial. The University has a campus wide license to use Top Hat. There should be no cost to our students.
7. Then follow the "Direct through Top Hat" instructions above from step 9.